DOCUMENTS

This April, all first- through eighth-graders in the Hall County and Gainesville city school systems took the Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests.

For the first time, there were eight CRCT this year that were aligned to the Georgia Performance Standards, which are academic standards the state Department of Education expects all Georgia students to meet.

The new CRCT were given in mathematics to grades three through five and to eighth-graders.

Also, new science and social studies tests that were aligned to Georgia Performance Standards were administered to eighth-graders, and new social studies CRCT were administered to sixth- and seventh-graders.

According to the Georgia Department of Education, this year’s CRCT scores are not comparable to those from last year, when the test was aligned to the old curriculum.

As a result of the CRCT being realigned to test students on the Georgia Performance Standards, the new tests this year were more rigorous and required higher-order thinking.

Across the state, 72 percent of fifth-graders and 62 percent of eighth-graders passed the new mathematics CRCT.

About 60 percent of eighth-graders passed the new science CRCT.

State Superintendent of Education Kathy Cox said Georgia must face the reality that its students need more advanced mathematics and science skills to be successful in the 21st century.

The results of the sixth and seventh grade social studies exams were invalidated due to alignment issues on the test.

Educators and curriculum experts have made preliminary revisions to the curriculum in these areas.

According to the state Department of Education, third-graders who do not pass the reading CRCT are not promoted to the fourth-grade, and fifth- and eighth-graders who do not pass both the reading and math CRCT also are denied promotion.

Take a look at how local students performed on the new CRCT. These results do not include summer CRCT retests.